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The Day after The End and The Rest of Your Life

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The Day after The End and The Rest of Your Life

I stayed up way too late into Sunday morning messing around with my blogs, such that I completely forgot about the “Apocalypse” that had been getting so much buzz on the web. Then I noticed that someone on my social network feed had “checked in” on an apocalypse page as “safe” like someone checking in after riding out a hurricane. Really? 2017 and we’re still playing this “I know when Jesus is coming back!” game? If you’re such a great biblical scholar, uncovering some unknown truth hidden for 2000 years in the Book of Revelations, maybe you should spend a moment or two explaining how you can completely ignore this statement:

“However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself.[a] Only the Father knows.” Matthew 24:36

Egads people, how much must you hate your life that you are desperate for divine intervention to fix your life at the expense of some world-wide calamity? Over the course of my life I’ve already witnessed endless dates set for the Lord’s return. Beginning as a teenager in Southern California I remember the proclamation of the Chuck Smith, of Calvary Chapel fame, that Jesus had to come back one-generation after the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948, that being the late 1970. The net result was that thousands of young people literally not planned on living into their 30s (granted young people are not really known for having any long term plans…). But year after year, someone has generated a following based on secret knowledge about Jesus coming back bringing the End of the World, despite Jesus’ own worlds in the gospels warning against such knowledge. Insanity.

At the same time, I’m cautious about full-on calling believers on such things because, while I wish we were less willing to believe such bullshit and swallow delusional crap from charlatans and religious fools, this “hopefulness” isn’t entirely unrelated to our ability to succeed against all odds and do the impossible. It’s complicated.

So the day of this apocalypse has come and gone and no one will hold the “prophets” accountable for the false claim and the hopeful will lurch forward waiting for the next prediction (the next date now being October 15th). I found a video of one believer acknowledging what didn’t happen but still believing and doubling down on getting the next prediction right. Ugh. For my part I’ve long since realized, now that I’m in the last year of my fifth decade, that it’s silly for me to spend any concern on a Biblical Apocalypse when my own personal demise is guaranteed and I have fewer years ahead of me than I’ve already lived. Why wait for signs in the heavens when I already know that my part of this story is over half over. And knowing that how do I choose to spend my remaining time?

We traditionally spend so much energy on “some day,” often avoiding or shirking the responsibilities of right now. You don’t have to be a religious nut job to get that all wrong. Are you completely engulfed with the day-to-day, such that you’ve forgotten that there should be some destination (in this life) for all this effort? Or are you so about the “some day” that you’ve abdicated any joy in your daily efforts? It’s not an easy thing to balance. I had to get seriously in (in 2012) to realize that I couldn’t just let the days fly by. I’m not waiting for some mythical guy on a white horse to appear in the skies over Jerusalem or something that’s supposed to sound like trumpets to work on balancing the day-to-day with overall plan. And I haven’t been a “what’s your five-year plan” kind of guy, but I’m just now figuring that out. I don’t have forever, so what’s the plan? I hope the religious nut jobs find what they’re looking for, I’m just trying to figure out what I’m supposed to do with my remaining years (hopefully) and how often I should order that bucket of Coronas.

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Thanks for visiting this blog. I've moved all of my posts to joebustillos.com. Please click the link, then scroll to the very bottom of that page where it says, “Follow Blog via Email,” and click the FOLLOW button to get a notification via email whenever there’s a new post on the new blog. Thanks